tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Feb 24 02:00:09 2001
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RE: Pronunciation [was RE: K'Zhen Zu-Merz]
THANK YOU! (Just in case you don't get to the end of my previous message):
> One of the best descriptions of how to pronounce them comes
> from Seqram,
> who suggests that you imagine Elmer Fudd saying "terrible"
> and "miracle".
> If you have any significant experience with Fudd's
> idiosyncratic speech,
> you'll get it immediately: "tewwible" has the Klingon {ew}
> combination in
> its first syllable, and "miwacle" has Klingon {Iw}.
THANK YOU! and I mean that. I hadn't got that connection in that last post.
Let's see if I've got it.... The [trailing] {w} sound is more like moving
the mouth and lips towards the position used to create the normal Klingon
{w} sound but not finishing with a extra expelation of air at the final
point results in a sound that to a listener sounds like {vowel-u}. Therefore
the reason MO uses the {w} character to represent it is because although it
sounds similar to a {u} the mouth position is that of the {w}???? Is that
sort of it? sort of the first part of {w} whithout finishing it off?
If that was correct or almost correct then I understand what was written in
TKD and more importantly how to pronounce these combinations "non loosely" .
Phonetically speaking the part that produces the {u} sound alike is when the
mouth parts move between the two positions and as such the vowel is changing
in sound. If I'm correct with that and there is a change in the vowel
production then that combination/change would be a diphthong even if it gets
so close to the {w} production that it can be said that the sound finishes
with a consonant production. If you don't believe me and assuming I do
understand it now sound it yourself very slowly and you'll feel as well as
hear the vowel sound change before getting to the {w} position. That is
all that is needed to classify the sound as a diphthong.
>
> -- ghunchu'wI' 'utlh
>
Qapla'
qe'San